Chasing Orion
by Father Vengeance
Summary: Before her relationship with Castle there was impermanence. Before their partnership: a largely solitary crusade sprung from obsession. Kate Beckett's walls resulted from more than a single loss, and more than one tentative reach for joy that was denied. This is my imagining of such, a dark tale of origin.
1. A Harrowing Ride

If Kate Beckett had learned anything from the past four years with the NYPD, it's that the reaper was rarely an expected acquaintance. Logically, she knew that. Illogically, she'd assumed what every victim probably had: she was different. Her life had an important purpose to fulfill before it was allowed to end.

This wasn't supposed to be happening. It wasn't the plan.

Yet there she lay. Zip-ties bound her wrists and ankles. A foul-smelling sack had been pulled over her head. The carpeted lining of the trunk abraded her flesh with every turn of the automobile. Even now Officer Beckett was confounded by the surreal circumstances. She'd forsaken trying to mentally map the route her captors were using. They'd been traveling for what felt like at least an hour. At one point the driver had made four right turns—taunting her, she imagined, with the futility of attempting to guess where they might be headed.

_What happened? What went wrong?_

It was not the first time those questions and more had flitted through her racing mind. She'd been undercover for six weeks, part of a three-person team that had been invited to join an OC task force in hopes of infiltrating an increasingly violent crew within the Serbian mafia. She'd gotten in the deepest. A woman.

Female undercover operations were farcically typical. They wrangled johns in Vice or played the role of mindless arm-candy. Both examples provided viable opportunities to excel. But this wasn't Vice where the sickening subterfuge ended upon an offering of money for sex. Choosing to portray herself as a love interest would've likely found her doing much of the 'work' on her back. _No, thank you_.

Instead she'd sat down with the detective squad running the case and devised the backstory of a female killer-for-hire. She'd spent so much time on it looking for holes, memorizing the details. Milinka Jankovic was as good as a viable identity, complete with an expired student visa, bills paid in her name, a brief work history, and a criminal charge of weapons possession that had been reduced to time served. Two long months of preparation had been invested, which included moving Beckett into an appropriate neighborhood to begin establishing a presence and making acquaintances—essentially just being seen. By the time she was given the go-ahead to initiate contact with the gang she sensed her colleagues were likewise enthusiastic about her chances of success. Having them in her corner was an unexpected confidence boost.

It had been well-placed faith.

She'd nailed it right out of the gate. One of the Serbian crew members had gotten himself into trouble behind a hole-in-the-wall bar which doubled as an illegal gambling den. Three Russian thugs were tuning him up. As grand entrances went, the officer couldn't have hoped for better. It was supposed to have been a simple first step. She'd given the man her name as they'd fled the scene, but nothing else. She'd stayed aloof afterward. They found her instead; the background work she'd invested had sold itself. Since then Beckett had slowly, hesitantly worked her way into the confidence of a gang that had proven more menacing than random outbursts of violence suggested.

Or so her progress had seemed. The present existed in looming contradiction.

The Serbian men had proven to have solid connections by being able to find her place and verify the cover story. Evidently their connections were better than she'd assumed—good enough to pierce the veil. But damn; she'd done everything she could think of to not underestimate their capabilities.

Presently, the car bucked as they drove over what felt like a speed bump. It slowed further, and soon came to a stop. Beckett's heart began racing in contrast to the sudden stillness.

_Maybe this is some kind of twisted initiation._

Unlikely. They'd broken into her room at the SRO around two in the morning and taken her before she even knew what was happening. It wasn't gentle. She'd lived up to the cover story again by breaking one assailant's nose. But there had been two of them. Both men were solid and trained—former Red Berets perhaps. The struggle was swift and brutal. She couldn't recall now having seen whatever blow ended up taking her down, but her jaw was sore as hell and her head was downright throbbing.

_As violent as these guys are, this could still be some kind of game. If half of the stories about them are true this is right up their alley. _She willed that theory to be true.

The driver and passenger doors opened and closed. She could dimly hear footsteps approaching the rear of the car. The woman braced herself physically, tensing as she heard the key inserted into the lock. A sudden rush of air and rising volume of the city's traffic greeted her. The early spring temperature was an assault; she had only a thin yellow t-shirt and a pair of black panties to fend it off.

"Fight me again," a heavily accented man said. The wet, nasal quality of the voice suggested it was the guy whose nose had been introduced to her elbow. "I wish you to do so," he added in a growl.

_Put me on my feet, untie my hands, and we'll talk_, she thought venomously.

"Be quiet," another, deeper voice ordered with a less pronounced accent. Rough hands followed immediately afterward, grabbing Beckett by the wrists and pulling her forward. She couldn't offer much of a struggle. Being cramped up for the better part of an hour left her wobbly, and—oh god, moving was sending lances of pain through her head and neck. The captor brook no hesitance or thought for her stability; he pulled her right out of the trunk and let gravity finish the task. Her shoulder slammed into the pavement even as her lower half banged painfully against the car and followed after.

Pain and a sweeping sense of dizziness erupted within the police officer. It was overwhelming. She threw up a meager dinner with the musty-smelling hood over her head.

"Gross," she heard Broken-nose mutter.

_Ugh. Agreed_.

"Get legs," Rough-hands commanded quietly.

Beckett drifted apart from the physical world, floating serenely. Dimly, she found it within herself to be grateful for them carrying her face-down, with the hood hanging away from her skin. Even when they dropped her unceremoniously onto what felt like wooden planks, she only minded a little.

"How much time?" Broken-nose asked, and spat.

"Not long."

"_How_ long?"

"Who cares? We wait."

Beckett stirred tentatively. The unmistakable flow of water was audible. Beneath the smell of the hood, and that of the ghastly returned Chinese take-out, she discerned the scent of saltwater. Less than an hour on the road from her place in the village, coupled with a lack of bridges… They must be at the shore of the East River. The speed bump previously was probably from one of the entrances to the park. They were on the promenade. _Shit_. The odds of outside intervention were getting slimmer all the time.

"Pretty thing like this," she heard Broken-nose grumble. "Maybe I wait with her. You go back to car."

_Oh god_. Usage of the word 'thing' over the more appropriate 'woman' was in itself a frighteningly revealing detail. The already quickened pace of her heart became more labored still. She gulped in a breath around an imagined knot of revulsion thickening in her throat.

"Orders are: she goes unspoiled," Rough-hands replied in a quieter, deadly tone. "She stays unspoiled, or you go in the water and you don't come out again."

Beckett heard herself murmur, "Neener, neener, you sick bastard."

Silence fell, lingered.

She crumpled around the kick to her midsection with a deep outcry of pain and surprise. Yet she found her breath again as a result, and her addled thoughts swam into sharper focus. What was she still doing just lying there? No one would be coming for her—not in time anyway. Her handler wasn't expecting to hear from her until later in the morning at the earliest, hours away.

_Time to move your ass, Katie_.

"You said no touching," Broken-nose pointed out, somewhat petulantly.

"Both of you shut up," the other seethed.

They'd bound her wrists in front. Beckett lifted them to the edges of the hood. It was slung over her head, but wasn't tied on. When she gave it a subtle tug though, one of the men put a booted foot on her right ankle and began pressing his weight onto it. The officer stilled as though turned to stone.

"Don't try me, bitch. I can hurt you plenty without leaving mark."

"I-I'm having trouble breathing," she rasped. Not true, but if the deep ache in her chest was any indication she'd taken a hit to the solar plexus. If they really were military trained they might know enough to be worried about having overdone it in terms of force.

Beckett was just reaching the cusp of realizing they didn't care about her breathing when the boot lifted away and the hood was jerked roughly off of her head. A chilling breeze of salt-tinged air pushed at her hair and bathed her cheeks. The day had been warm, a true herald of spring; night, however, recalled the passage of winter and bore its icy fangs. The contrast had coaxed a blanketing layer of mist over the river. She coughed and slowly uncurled herself from a defensive fetal position, rolled onto her other side. The park around them was barren, a wide-open space dotted with trees that were in turn swallowed up by the very shadows they cast. Headlights from passing cars on the nearby FDR winked rapidly between the grid-patterned bars of its bordering fence.

_So close_, she thought, wrenching at the sight. _No more than fifty yards_. They might as well be a hundred miles away. No way would she make it without a decent head start.

Both men loomed above, each wearing a black ski-mask, both attired simply in dark pants and thick coats. Neither was close enough to be taken by surprise if she launched an attack. Their appropriate level of caution was dispiriting. Choosing the role of a killer-for-hire obviously bore unforeseen pitfalls. If they couldn't be goaded into underestimating her, perhaps they might be conned into overestimating her injuries.

"Oh God. What did you do to me?" she groaned.

"Enough," Rough–hands succinctly assured her.

"Too much, you imbecile. I-I can't see."

Broken-nose seemed to involuntarily fall back a pace. "What?" He pointed at his companion and muttered angrily. "What you do?"

"She's fine."

"Blind is not fine!"

"So what if she is," the other shrugged. "They won't care about that."

Kate groaned again and swore viciously at them in their native tongue, playing it up.

"Don't be stupid," Broken-nose growled agitatedly. "Blind is maybe bleeding in the head."

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"If she is too damaged they won't accept payment. Debt is still on."

"That's Mikhail's problem, not mine."

_Sonofabitch_. Beckett was briefly stricken by a sudden rush of understanding. Her cover hadn't been blown at all. Mikhail Banich was the man whose ass she'd spared being stomped in by the thugs outside that gambling den. She was being sold to the Russians to settle his debt—sold to human traffickers.

_Oh shit, that's why they don't want me too banged up_.

"Maybe it become your problem," Broken-nose replied meaningfully.

_Yes. God yes, please, kill each other_.

Beckett gave a cry of surprise when Rough-hands fell on her, snatching her roughly by her long hair. He shook her violently and the officer jerked away involuntarily when he leveled the gaping maw of a snub-nosed revolver right in her face.

"You see, idiot?" he thundered, turning to his companion. "Not blind." Fetid breath spilled onto the officer's face as he said, "Good ruse, girl, but not our first rodeo."

_No. It's your last._

When Beckett wrenched the gun backwards in his meaty grip, it put the barrel right under the man's chin. It was incredibly stupid—pure desperation. She could scarcely believe she hadn't accidentally shot herself. Rough-hands didn't even have time to widen his eyes. The brutal contortion of his finger in the trigger guard served as the lever of his own destruction. The gun bucked in their hands with a hellish roar and spat fire into the meager space between them. A thicker, crimson mist _erupted_ into the night air in immediate reply, dousing her.

Beckett wasn't prepared for the disorienting effect of the close-up blast, nor the horrid aftermath. It was a first for her. A pair of infinitely precious seconds was lost while her assailant fell away and hit the ground with terrible finality.

Broken-nose was right there at her side, a mass of shadow and moonlit menace. She couldn't force herself out of the stupor, could only manage to gape up at him, horribly and infuriatingly inert. The man's broad features were livid, his eyes widened. The pupils were opened into rounded gorges of sickening arousal. "Beautiful," he murmured aloud, a hushed and breathy exclamation.

The impact of his gun against the side of her head dropped the officer like a switch had been thrown. She fell like Rough-hands had and could only hope that it would be an equally lasting descent. For if she returned from the darkness again her assailant, now unsupervised, would be surely waiting—eagerly awaiting.


	2. The Beautiful Death

A loud, monotonous hum swallowed Beckett. It saturated her skin and seeped into her bones. Consciousness hadn't been working out so well for her lately, yet the officer reluctantly pursued the sound into a state of half-awareness. She lay on a different surface than before. Gone were the planks of the promenade. They were replaced by things both moist and lumpy, some were cushioned. Scents invaded her grogginess: nylon, plastic, diesel, and the ocean—no longer a mere trace of saltwater on the city air, but predominant. The world was lurching beneath her in a distinct pattern: up and down, up and down. _Ugh. Someone let me off_. If her dinner hadn't already been evicted she'd had done so then. Each rough descent was punctuated by an audible spray.

_Boat_, she mused. Beneath her: a confusion of ropes, buoy rings, and life preservers. Several edges and protrusions among the clutter were jabbing into her, yet the woman lay as though boneless, a perfect lack of resistance. With absence in mind, she noted the missing grip of the killing wind on her body.

She'd been secreted away somewhere—a hidden treasure.

_Where will they bury me?_

Her slippery mind wandered, unbidden, and latched onto a passage from one of her mother's Derek Storm novels. It was a poem, succinct and solitary upon its own designated page, preceding the story itself:

_Timeless motion carries,  
sweet serration ferries.  
Spared Poseidon's wrath,  
a shifting, ominous path._

Moonlight on the ocean. Funny; despite the insertion of the oceanic Greek god she'd never put two and two together. There was little time for reading, and when there was her tastes in literature rarely included contemporary fiction. Now though, the enigma of that poetic riddle taunted her, and she wondered at the author's inclusion of it. What had her mother said? There was something about the main protagonist being on a boat that capsized during the climactic ending, leaving him stranded miles from shore in the middle of the night.

Oh, but it was suddenly so clear. She could see it in the darkness behind her eyelids: the man floating alone, so terribly alone; adrift in a temperate sea, but miles from land. And the moon!—a quivering swath of silvered light delineating an uncaring landscape of endless waves. Empathy for that fictional man stirred in her breast with surprising force. The melancholy beauty of it was strangely, undeniably effecting.

A jarring impact of the hull upon the waves ripped her out of the daydream.

Even without the wind the cold was a living, devouring thing; her focus returned to the present to find the temperature gnawing at her like a scavenger picking over a carcass. It hurt so much. Beckett furrowed her brow deeply, issued a whimper of purest misery. Before her anger could flare to new and blazing life, before determination could give fresh vigor to her battered body, the officer fled into darkness again without even opening her eyes.

Being roused by her captors was a horror all its own. She woke next to stinging pain, and groaned. A heavy hand slapped her roughly across her left cheek, clearly not for the first time. Her eyes shot open with a startled gasp, but the upward lunge of her shoulders was halted by the sight of a man standing over her.

Large and rough-hewn, thick-necked and broad-shouldered, a bearded figure studied her critically, rising to his full six-foot height. "She's awake," he reported on a grunt.

Beckett scrambled away a few feet, but her back hit the fiberglass wall of the boat. She cowered there, ashamed and angry at herself for doing so, but…it was just such a shock. It was a violation to which she had no previous basis for comparison. Slowly, her heart-rate diminished and her breathing evened.

The boat was a cruiser class vessel, around sixty feet with a deep V-shaped design. Two other captors were aboard with her and Mr. Thick-neck. One of them, balding and well-dressed, was seated several feet away with an Ak-47 assault rifle leveled on her. The other man, in ratty-looking jeans and a heavy black coat, stood with his back to her, facing…

_Oh shit_.

The cruiser had pulled up alongside a ship. In terms of cargo vessels, Handysize freighters were by no means the largest, but it positively dwarfed the boat Beckett was on. It was a broad and fat looking thing even from her limited perspective. A dreary, faded blue comprised the hull. A rope ladder had been slung over the side of the vessel and the man facing it was untangling the lower portion in preparation to ascend.

Beckett shook badly as the wind picked up. Her t-shirt, meager protection at best, had been soaked through at some point. The thinness of the material made it more like a second layer of skin. She drew her shoulders inward and folded both arms across her chest in an admittedly pathetic attempt at modesty. The man with the AK-47 licked his lips with seemingly unconscious lust, but didn't relax his rifle even for a moment.

"Where are we?" the dark-haired woman tried. The words—still flavored by her use of a light Serbian accent—came out as more of a hoarse croak. The taste of bile was still thick in her mouth. She winced, grimaced.

"Home sweet home," Thick-neck replied grimly. His voice was telling; Russian, surely, but the accent was significantly diminished, as of someone many years away from their homeland. The man turned to counter behind him and faced her again with a plastic bottle of water in hand. He lofted in questioningly.

Beckett swallowed reflexively, but made no move to reach for it. Who knew what was in it?

"I was on the promenade in East River Park…"

"Oh yes. And you left quite a mess behind, you naughty girl." His narrowing eyes seemed to glitter in the on-board lights. It was unclear what provoked such: mirth or admiration. "I do believe the other man with you intended to withdraw from our agreement and claim you for himself."

_Broken-nose_. "You killed him?"

"No, though not for lack of trying. One of my men winged him as he fled."

_Thus pulling me out of the frying pan and into the fire_, Beckett mused grimly. She recalled the look on Broken-nose's face before he'd struck her—the obscene attraction. It was chilling even in the safety of retrospect. _That guy must be absolutely_ furious_ right now_. The officer focused on her present captor, asked, "What's your name?"

"Fyodor. You?"

Beckett hesitated, frowning. The casualness of the conversation was off-putting. It was all too clear that the man had been around captive women long enough as to have shed any moral discomfort—assuming he'd ever started out with any. In light of such, her attempt to assert some manner of control on her circumstances was losing traction. "Milinka," she lied at length.

"Are you afraid, Milinka?"

_Shit_, Beckett thought, feeling her heart beginning to pick up its pace again. Such an inane question could only be a threat. "You betcha."

"That's okay," Fyodor replied easily, neither smiling nor frowning. "You have every reason to be. The trick is to maintain enough control that it doesn't rule you. Giving in to panic will only upset the men. Or worse," he added with the fractional lift of one eyebrow, "intrigue them."

He was too damn calm as he laid out the ground-rule. Beckett wished she hadn't started speaking to him. _Too late to hold back now_. _I need answers_. "Are you exporting me then?"

"You've already been exported. New York City lies a little over two hundred miles that way." He tipped his chin towards the open ocean at her left. "We're anchored in international waters now."

_He's lying_. He had to be. If not she was fucked. _Poor choice of words, Katie_.

"The seal isn't broken," Fyodor pointed out, lifting the bottle upright for her inspection.

"I'm fine."

"In English," her kidnapper remarked while setting the water aside, "this ship is called the 'Cerulean Traveler'." Behind him the man at the ladder had sorted out the tangles and begun climbing. On the deck twenty-some feet above another figure was visible observing the progress below. "But tonight is special," Fyodor continued conversationally. "You might think of it as a social event—an annual gala we host."

"I don't think I'm dressed for a party," Beckett returned dryly.

"On the contrary," Fyodor issued, raking his eyes down her body pointedly. When his gaze rose to hers again he continued, "On this special night they call this ship by a different name: Prekrasnaya Smert." Beckett felt the blood swiftly draining from her features. "Ah. I see you know a bit of Russian."

_Damn it_. She had to control her reactions. The only weapons at hand were her skills and wits; they needed to be guarded and kept secret. "I think…it means 'beautiful death'."

"Just between you and me," Fyodor replied, and paused, leaning slightly towards her across the distance dividing them, "that title is very inaccurate. These Americans…they have a disturbing sense of humor. Don't you think so? Lucky for them vast sums of wealth overcome such limitations."

Beckett's legs trembled beneath her, a response unrelated to the cold.

"We sit upon a very hungry ocean. It eats well on such nights."

"Oh god," she issued, aloud this time, though merely a whisper.

"Save your pleading," Fyodor told her, with deeply disquieting gentleness. "For later."

The horror was less for herself than the idea of the ship's existence in the first place. There were stories about things like this happening, and not merely in works of fiction. But they often originated in places subject to extreme levels of chaos and desperation—places where the right amount of money trumped everything, including law. Beckett couldn't help wondering how many other captives were aboard right now, and how many had been during previous 'galas'. She forced the words out, "How long have you been doing this?"

"Personally? Six years. But the tradition itself?" Fyodor shrugged. "One can only guess."

"How many…" the officer's voiced failed her. In the theatre of her mind's eye she saw an ocean floor littered with bones, a watery pit from which skeletal faces were piled atop one another with jaws that gaped open in eternal, voiceless protest of their fates.

"It varies," Fyodor replied. "This year we have twenty-two, which is including you. Last year we had a bigger catch. But the clients we cater to have the very highest standards. Quality is more difficult than quantity and these people—they expect us to have _both_. Of course they do."

Beckett must have unwittingly communicated a mounting, deadly fury via her expression. Fyodor's left hand lowered to his side and fixed around the grip of a side-arm clipped to his belt. She briefly considered moving in despite that advantage and the other guard nearby. The equanimity with which he spoke of his and his companions misdeeds felt like an assault upon her humanity.

"My bullet won't go anywhere vital," he warned evenly. "All you'll get for your trouble is a lot more unnecessary suffering."

"According to you I'm dead either way."

"Not every client's appetite is so twisted. You might live to see the shore again."

"Sure I will," Beckett growled, angry to be spoon-fed a lie, but more pissed off by the way her insides lurched with the desire to consume it as a possible truth. She wanted to live. She had to. _It can't end here, like this. There's too much to do_.

"Some women stay with our friends in the city and work. They give American couples beautiful babies."

Beckett could only gape mutely. The man spoke of it as if that kind of life were a mercy. This had to be a nightmare. Hell, maybe, or some previously unknown form of purgatory. The cruiser must have sailed off the edge of the map, and as the cartographers of old had warned: Here there be monsters.

"You'll find food and water scarce. Basic sustenance is a reward here, not a right. Are you sure you don't want something to drink before we go aboard?"

_Oh god._ She pursed her lips firmly, the better to contain what felt like a scream wanting out. There was no way of knowing what might emerge along with it. Begging? The truth about her being an undercover cop? The awaiting perverts would probably have a bidding war over her if they knew.

"So be it. Time to climb," Fyodor stated, and backed away from the rope ladder to lend her room to approach. He was smart enough to keep plenty of distance between them, and drew his weapon to dial in on her.

"How much did Mikhail owe?" she asked angrily. "How much did they sell me for?"

"A mere fraction of your true worth, Milinka."

"Did they tell who I am? What I do?"

"No, but we did not ask. What's the expression? Your picture was more worthy than a thousand words."

"Close enough," Beckett muttered, grabbing the ladder. She hesitated at its base. The officer pulled in a shaky breath, scanned from left to right as she fought against another sudden riptide of panic. A frightening certainty coalesced in the center of her chest as the officer lingered there: she'd never leave this ship once she set foot aboard.

"Up, up," Fyodor encouraged impassively.

_God help me_.

She climbed.


	3. Unexpected Passengers

John Whitman was speechless. That was unfamiliar territory. For over twenty years he'd arbitrated business deals and brought his firm through many a crisis—all using no greater armament than a silver tongue. The lawyer's name was known and respected in The City; it had joined the short string of others stenciled above the entrance to their office building. Yet he couldn't find the words to properly dispel the fundamental lack of understanding he was experiencing now. The sixty-two-year-old man, father of three, thought he would have better luck finding common ground with members of an alien species.

He didn't have the words.

Even if he did though, it was doubtful the men kidnapping him would prove interested in a discussion.

That was clear by the very manner in which they were performing the task. Not a single word had been spoken. They'd been waiting on the roof when Whitman had exited to approach the helipad. Two men, dressed in appallingly mundane street clothes—jeans, overcoats, and the daunting anonymity provided by plain black ski masks.

When he'd turned to flee, to seek the help of those useless assholes in security, a third figure barred his passage. He must have been hidden off to either side of the stairwell doorway. The two from the helipad ramp moved in until the trio formed a vague triangle with their quarry at its center. There they paused, each piece at rest upon its starting square. For an indeterminable series of moments it almost seemed as if the world itself had taken notice and stilled, waiting to witness the next move.

They were a distinctly odd crew, mismatched in proportions. One was tall and well-muscled, the second was shorter, but similarly built, and the third was shorter still, but intimidatingly massive. The guns they'd come armed with were likewise varied.

The cornered man flinched inwardly when the tallest casually advanced into the cone of light pouring from an overhead fixture. The stranger's eyes were as close to black as human eyes could get, with a deeply strange narrow band of white circling each pupil. A cosmetic defect of some kind, but it obviously didn't prohibit the man from seeing clearly. It didn't stop him from pausing two feet from Whitman and holding out a small white card in a black leather glove. A typed message was apparent upon it.

_I shouldn't have taken it_. Maybe then they would have been forced to say something—anything. Their silence was unnerving. It ate at him worse than threats would have. Threats were familiar at least—his job was often a veritable litany of them, veiled and otherwise. But he'd accepted the item, too surprised to decide otherwise.

It read: **Good evening. We're looking for Silvia Gould. She was taken from her mother's home in Brighton Beach earlier today. A newborn son is also waiting for her safe return. Whoever took her was sloppy, Mr. Whitman. He left behind her prepaid cell phone. Records for the number indicate multiple calls from your son-in-law over the past year. This morning, before she went missing, another, different number called: your office—your personal extension. We found the paperwork explaining the correlation. We know Silvia changed her mind about giving up her baby, and we know your reputation as a sore loser. You need her to sign the paperwork; fortunately, that means you can't kill her. But you're going to take us to her. Now. Please bear in mind, Mr. Whitman: like you, we're the worst kind of sore losers.**

_Jesus_. Presently, he still had it clutched in a death-grip within his trembling right fist. His heart banged painfully. The man couldn't decide between fear and rage. Both emotions assailed him with equal force. "You—you have to understand," he began hesitantly, grinding the words between his teeth. "What you're asking me to do isn't that simple. I can't get her back. She…she's not in the city. She's long gone." The men just stared, unmoving, uncommunicative. "A-alive I mean, but gone. There's a—a ship, a Russian ship. They take women…do you understand? I don't have her anymore. They do."

Oh shit. He'd said the wrong thing.

Almost as one the pair flanking him closed in. Oh. No—they'd converged more upon their leader. The air was so tense with what _wasn't_ being said that the hostage's ears felt stuffed up and achy from the lack. Sounds of the city in motion were audible below as a steady din, but that didn't help dissuade the sensation or the horrible tension which precipitated it. Three sets of eyes all but glittered with menace as the men regarded one another in turn.

Then the leader spoke, and Whitman immediately wished he hadn't. There had been an ephemeral idea of personal safety in their careful maintenance of anonymity. "You sold her." The man's voice bore no discernible accent, an untrammeled and authoritative baritone.

"I was protecting my family!"

"Your family," one of the others repeated. It was the hulking, muscled one. His light brown eyes narrowed behind the mask. "It's _her_ child."

"It's my grandchild," Whitman returned, his voice rising. How could he talk to them reasonably if they couldn't even grasp such a basic truth? His life depended on their communication; he felt that with certitude. "That woman signed away her parental rights of her own free will. We have a binding agreement. My daughter…she can't conceive." The lawyer stammered onward even though the men had turned their attention back to one another. "A colleague of mine told me he knew someone who helped people in my situation. Obviously a bit of a gray area as far legality, b-but no one gets hurt! Everything was fine before that whore contested the arrangement." The sheer enormity of Silvia Gould's ungratefulness was infuriating. When would the woman ever meet people of his family's caliber otherwise? Never. She was given a gift, a chance to do something meaningful. And the rotten bitch spurned the opportunity. "She isn't equipped to be a mother for God's sake. We're doing her a favor despite what she's attempting to put us through. My grandson will want for nothing."

"Nothing except a moral backbone," another of the men observed dryly. He was the middle one in height, with gas-flame blue eyes. A nylon shoulder harness embraced his torso; two black handguns were holstered under either arm. "Do yourself a favor, John. Shut up."

"Good God," the leader among them issued, oddly hoarse, as if pained. "A ship? A missing woman? It's _real_. Those rumors we heard…"

"We don't know that," the blue-eyed man offered with a slightly raised gloved hand. "This guy could be full of shit—sending us on a wild goose chase."

"I don't know," the broadest one muttered—his voice was an imposing bass. "Why choose _that_ lie? Silvia is a baby-making slave to these people. It would make more sense to claim that she managed to snatch this guy's money and ran, abandoning the kid. Why bring up a ship no one wants to believe exists? I think he's telling the truth."

"Thinking isn't your strong-suit though, remember?"

"Huh? Hey! Fuck you."

"That's original."

"Fuck y—uh, wait…"

"I take it back. You're obviously Socrates reborn."

"Enough," their leader commanded mildly.

Whitman blinked, frowned deeply. _Who the hell are these guys_?

"If it _is_ real we can't ignore this." Dark, ringed eyes fixed on their captive. "Where is the ship anchored?"

"I was texted coordinates." He gestured weakly to the awaiting blue and white helicopter. "I was on my way there." The trio shared another long, silent look. By the slowly aggressive changing of their postures he knew, once again, he'd said something very wrong. _God damn it, what now_?

"You'll proceed then," the leader stated evenly at length. "We'll join you as your private security detail."

"No! We don't bring security. They won't allow that."

The blue-eyed man folded his arms across his chest. The gloved fingertips of one hand tapped lightly at the grip of one of the weapons he bore. It seemed more of an unconscious tick than a threat, but there was no way to be certain. The lawyer swallowed thickly. "You argue for a living, John. We trust you'll figure something out."

"You don't know these men. They'll kill us all if I show up with armed strangers. No questions asked."

"They might not be so quick to kill additional paying customers."

Each man looked to Whitman, who hesitated too long—_damn it!_—before denying, "No way. They're very selective of their clients, okay? It's not just a question of money. They have to _know_ you."

"They know you," their primary rumbled. "It's our best chance."

"Each client's passage costs a hundred grand. You look a little light."

"I'm two-seventy," the heavy-set figure disagreed.

The blue-eyed one issued a disgusted _tsk_ and said, "He means light on money."

"Oh."

"That means he thinks you're poor. It's a snide commentary on how you're dressed."

"But…I _am_ poor."

"Right. And he thinks that's funny."

"So? He's a baby-stealing dick-face. I ain't gonna trust his sense of humor."

The other—_the goddamned instigator_—merely shrugged one shoulder in concession.

Their leader, his attention apparently having turned inward throughout the exchange, arose from his musings with a muttered, "Both of you be quiet." He focused that eerie gaze of his on Whitman and let it set for a moment before speaking. "The financial records for your firm indicate unaccounted losses of income over the past several years." God in heaven, how had he gotten _that_ information? "No doubt it stretches back much farther. Those amounts may be small enough and stretched out far enough for you to avoid an audit from the government, but we both know it isn't falling in and out of petty cash. A man like you—no, you keep money on hand."

"A lot of it," the blue-eyed man added, "if your tastes in escorts is any indication. You should go easy on those little blue pills, John. Nature's a bitch when she gets around to hitting back."

"Where's your stash?" the heavy-set one growled.

"Of blue pills? I had no idea you needed 'em."

"Money," the big man snarled at his fellow. "Stop…" he dithered momentarily, and agitatedly finished, "stop talking!"

"It's in his office," their primary inserted. "The throne room, as it were."

At this point the lawyer was only too willing to pay. These men were obviously disturbed; dismayingly well informed—well, two of them were—but deeply disturbed nonetheless. Who the hell knew what they were capable of? "There's a safe, yes," he replied. "I'll give you the money if you promise to let me go."

"We're here to find Silvia—not kill you. You have my word, Mr. Whitman: none of us will harm you."

_Strange_… The words rang sincere upon the captive's ears. It was probably his feverish mind wanting it to be true. They were obviously nuts. Fine, he'd take them to the ship. Fyodor would be furious, of course, and from a man who typically bullied and killed without emotion, furious was not the one Whitman wanted to provoke an encounter with. But the trafficker had a small army of ex-military flunkies on that ship. Let them deal with these...whatever they are.

Even bringing the extra money along served Whitman's best interests.

He might be able to use it to bargain for his life.


	4. Descent

The deck of the ship was too unfamiliar to make much sense of it. Beckett got a sweeping, cursory impression of the vessel's size, of gargantuan hatches covering multiple cargo holds and the towering presence of four on-board cranes. Darkness swallowed the rest. A smell she could only classify as _steel_ had found her halfway up the rope ladder and remained prominent. She'd expected everything to be wet, but it wasn't. She anticipated the ship's swaying to rekindle her nausea, but the reality was mild by comparison.

The several crewmen she encountered, however, were pretty much what she'd feared. They weren't violent or threatening. _Not yet_. On the contrary, the men of varying ages and fitness proved to be uniformly stoic, with dead, uncaring eyes that seemed to stare right through her. There were no visible second-thoughts or hesitations among them; she was all alone here. If she somehow managed to get free it would surely become a choice between her life and theirs.

They'd climbed aboard at around the halfway mark of the Beautiful Death's length. She wondered why at the time, but it was clear as Fyodor and two other men led her from the railing, straight into an open doorway. Clearly she wasn't meant to see much of the surface—that made her curious. _What's there to see?_

Beckett followed with another pair of thugs at her back. Her arms remained hugging her damp torso in an attempt of sheltering her wares. She wished for more hands. Not since the man with the AK-47 on the cruiser had anyone ogled her, but the self-consciousness was still there. So was the smell of her, which overpowered even that of steel within the confined space. _Ugh_. She stunk of vomit, fear-induced sweat, and blood. Every time the officer turned to look at something the stiffness of her shifting hair was audible. All she could do was hope that it was an effect of the seawater and not clotted blood and fleshy matter from the man she'd killed in East River Park.

Beckett hoped, but she knew better.

Just the thought got her stomach roiling, and she stopped warily, expectantly in the narrow corridor, but there was nothing left to give. One of the men behind wasted no time; he slammed a palm roughly between her shoulder-blades, propelling her into a stumbling advance.

"Don't fall behind," Fyodor murmured from ahead, not even turning to look.

She hesitated again when they came to a stairwell, but only for an instant. The railing saved her from calamity twice before they reached the bottom and turned into a new corridor. The ship's décor was austere. With the exception of posters meant to guide and caution, the walls were a dismal gray. A deep, quiet, underlying hum became discernible throughout the substructure of the vessel. It vibrated almost imperceptibly through the entire ship. _The engines must be spooled up_.

_We're not staying in one place_, she realized immediately afterward, and it was a crushing thought. No one knew where she was, but the idea of going one nautical mile farther from home was both terrifying and heart-breaking. The bad guys had good heads on their shoulders. They were cautious even when the coast was clear. Hopelessness assailed her with powerful force, and all that kept it in check was…something quite unexpected.

Of all possible things to latch onto, the image of Derek Storm adrift and alone in the sea had found its way back into her head. The imagining of a silvered, wavering trail of moonlight on the water was painfully clear, more so with each descending step into the ship's middle. She saw him there, far from home; watched him set his jaw stubbornly and cast his gaze to the sky. He found the evening star, and from that starting point selected a constellation that would lead him east. He swam.

So must she.

Another rough push from behind startled her, sent her to her knees in the corridor. She wasn't even aware of having stopped that time. Maybe she hadn't. Perhaps the deeper they traveled, the closer they inched towards Hell, the more each man's underlying darkness would begin to reveal itself.

The officer sucked in a breath and bit her lips to stifle a hiss of agony. She looked up to find Fyodor staring back at her between the pair flanking him. In the intermittent lights of the ship the trafficker appeared to be as much a collection of shadows as a man. The subtle hook of his humorless smile was exaggerated, seemed to stretch out into unnatural lengths upon the more obfuscated portion of his face. Beckett struggled to her feet, spurred by a wealth of disgust inherent to imagining the view she was presenting to the men behind her.

"Fall behind one more time," one of them issued in a grim voice, "and we'll take you back up top. You can entertain the crew while we're waiting for the real fun to begin."

Fyodor said nothing about the guy overstepping his authority. He merely watched, eyes narrowed in interest. Maybe there was no chain of command here, just a chaotic pit of beasts. She knew nothing about the ship, these people—only that it took true emptiness of the heart to do what they do. Beckett continued following without reply, struggling with cold limbs and fighting down a sudden urge to use the ladies room.

_Think, god damn it. Think_.

Every puzzle had a solution. There was a way out of this situation—a way to find the other captives and get them the hell out of here. She just had to find it. Fighting the men was useless right now, of course; there were too many. But a time would come when the odds would be better, surely. It had to come. The ship might prove an ally eventually; one could likely disappear into its myriad paths and hidey-holes for quite some time, even amidst an active search party. If she could just get away…

"This one is fine," Fyodor stated up ahead. He and the pair with him stopped before a hatchway and turned, facing her. She slowed, but didn't dare tempt the men behind her by stopping until they also reached the doorway. The one at the trafficker's right opened the door and stepped inside. The other followed. With the flip of a switch, white light spilled out in their wake. "Think of this as a processing station," Fyodor said. His voice was stronger in the hallway, reverberating unwholesomely. "There's a shower. Get cleaned up. There're also clothes, so get dressed. You have ten minutes." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, eyeing her with consideration from under his brow. "You're worth more alive than dead, Milinka. But if you cause any trouble, these men will…" He paused, nodded in the face of her wide and staring eyes. "I see you understand. Good." He stepped back a pace, arms crossed, and waved his fingers in silent prompting.

Beckett's heart was hammering again as she eased past and into the room. She glanced back at the men who'd been following and wished she hadn't. Their gloomy faces looked strange in the half-light; lumpy and malformed. Pinpricks of reflected light shone back at her from their dark eyes. They made no further move to follow, but they didn't leave either. Killing that man on the pier was earning her a level of caution that seemed likely to prohibit any chance of gaining the upper hand. She was in a constant state of being overpowered and woefully outgunned.

The officer couldn't recall a time she'd felt more effectively stalemated.

A cramped dwelling waited beyond the doorway. By the standards of ship housing it was probably akin to the penthouse suite. She estimated the main chamber, a dining room and kitchen combination, at around two-hundred square feet. One of the thugs was half sitting on the table. His sidearm was locked in both meaty hands and trained on her. He canted his head to his right where an arched opening led into a bedroom.

"Nine and a half minutes," Fyodor murmured from the hallway.

Beckett swallowed thickly and willed herself forward, giving the man on the table a wide berth as she edged her way further into the room. The bedroom was simple; featuring a queen-sized bed, cheap wooden desk, and an orange, plastic locker. A ceramic tiled bathroom stood to the right, barely a room at all really. The second captor sat upon the bed, one leg crossed beneath the other with his back against the headboard. He was tall and heavy like Fyodor, but smooth-shaven. Like the other guard in the residence he bore his weapon at the ready, an MP5 submachine-gun. He waved it towards the bathroom.

The officer stared at it briefly, stricken by the belated observation that it lacked a door or curtain. _Of course_. She should have expected as much.

"Nine minutes," came Fyodor's voice again, tinged with a tone of clear warning.

It was the worst time for hesitation, but she looked at her guard and just blinked, not even knowing where to begin an appeal that might earn her some shred of privacy.

"Face me at all times while you're in there," he told her. "Turn around for a second and I'll cut your legs right out from under you. And don't drink the water—not a sip. If I even see you swallow…" he turned the gun slightly within his large hands. It was a succinct enough gesture. "Get to it," he finished with a snarl.

Beckett wasn't even a prude. It's just…

_Just fucking do it_.

Her eyes stung with the initial hint of tears. It wasn't sadness or fear, but anger and indignation that goaded them to life as she worked the t-shirt up her midriff. The dampness of the material made it an effort to discard; she groaned softly in protest when it came off abruptly, felt the answering sway of her liberated breasts.

The guard gave a scratchy chuckle. "Good, good."

That's where the trouble really started. It was born there in that room, a place so lacking in ornamentation and privacy, but filled to the brim with pure invasiveness and indifference. It's where she first began to stop seeing the crew of the Beautiful Death as ordinary men. They weren't, were they? They weren't even cruel boys posing as men. Something…else had been bred here in the cold confines of this ship's belly.

The threat of tears slowly abated. Beckett stared him dead in the eye as she shed the panties. If someone had been there to ask her why, she couldn't have answered. Maybe it was a way of offering him one more chance to prove her wrong. _Show me something, you son of a bitch. One glint of humanity—a single spark of decency_.

The man turned his head and spat, gestured the barrel of his SMG towards the shower.

_Not a man_.

It was only a slight shift of perspective—merely a beginning. But it was a beginning.

Strange: as precarious as her situation was, and despite the unwholesome gaze of that disgusting sentry, the police officer savored ridding her long figure of the evening's grittiness. It wasn't an enjoyable experience by any means, but it offered some measure of physical relief. Given a choice, Beckett would have stayed dirty just to make...anything that might come later...as unlikely as possible. The issue was forced. She made the best of it.

Fyodor was standing in the dining room area when she came out. There were no towels; the officer dripped upon the floor uncertainly. She looked from her guard to the trafficker and arched an eyebrow.

Arms crossed, her impassive host held up an index finger and then pointed it, guiding her attention to her right.

The locker. Beckett moved to it and found both towels and several identical sets of clothes within. _I guess we can call them that_. She held them out, inspecting a plain white tank-top and a matching pair of thin, loose, white cotton pants with a draw-string waist, not unlike pajama bottoms. They varied only by size.

"Oh God, no," the woman rasped hoarsely, and swayed dangerously where she stood.

There were girl sizes included in the mix.

She crumpled the achingly small garments within her hands, sucking in deep breaths as a new flood of moisture overwhelmed her dark eyes. They weren't real. _Don't believe it_. The officer stood there for a small eternity repeating the sentiments over and over like a mantra. _Not real, not real, not fucking real_.

A heavy hand latched onto her shoulder, spinning her in a lurching one-eighty. Fyodor's eyes were narrowed into blades of lifeless blue. With one hand at her chest he slammed her back into the shelves and snatched her by the hair when the impact tested the solidity of her legs. An involuntary outcry escaped her.

"Do you want to die here?" he issued savagely.

No words—she had nothing, only the burned in image of those clothes.

He used the grasp on her hair to propel her towards the bed. She fell across it. "Useless," he snarled. "Do what you want with her. But do it downstairs, where the others can hear every fucking sound she makes. Get rid of her after."

_The others_. "No," Beckett heard herself expel hoarsely.

Fyodor had started to leave, but paused and turned his head to glare back at her. "What's that?"

"I don't want to die."

"Could've fooled me."

"Fuck you," Beckett exploded, fury writhing wildly against her already tenuous self-control. "You take me here—show me these things! How do you expect me to react?"

"I expect you to get it through your head that there's only one way out of this," the trafficker answered darkly. "My way: that means compliance. You fuck when you're told to fuck; you eat, sleep, and shit when we tell you to. You don't take a breath unless we clear it first. That's how you get back to shore." He narrowed his gaze on her again and stepped closer to the bed even as Beckett warily pushed herself upright, legs drawn close in anticipation of further violence. "I see through your fear. I'm familiar with your defiance. That's how I know you're not going to survive this. Oh you could, but you won't. There are only two kinds of women on this ship: the ones who bend to survive and those who break. I know which one you are." Beckett forced herself to remain still when one of his digits rose to touch at her chin, but their proximity alone made her skin crawl. "It's such a waste."

"Leave that up to me," she returned angrily. "I don't wanna die, but I can't help the fact that your floating fun-house of horrors gets to me."

"As I said before: it's on you to control your fear." He pushed her chin roughly to one side and withdrew a pace. The trafficker faced the man on the bed behind her and growled, "You four bring her down to the hold when she's dressed, and then get back up top with the others. Our final guest has finally gotten in touch. Apparently he's decided that it's okay to bring along some friends. We'll need to shift some of our assets to accommodate them—if they're worthwhile clients." The man started to leave, but paused again. He didn't bother turning around though. "I probably should have already killed you by now, Milinka. I don't… I don't know why I haven't, but rest assured, even my leniency has its limits. Try me again and I'm likely to come to my senses."


End file.
